Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/97

78 of philosophical Mysticism, its historical significance, as I must insist, is of the very greatest. Again and again it appears, as marking a transition stage in human civilization. It has had an enormous influence on literature. It has been responsible for a very large share in the development of all the great religions. You cannot understand the history of religion, without appreciating the mystical definition of Being.

As to the history of Mysticism, it began in India, with the Upanishads and the Vedânta. It early passed to Europe, and perhaps was independently rediscovered there. Even Plato’s dialogues contain some hints of its spirit. Even Aristotle’s account of God’s inner life has relation to its motives. In a marvellous combination with realistic and even with more concretely idealistic conceptions, it forms an element in the doctrine of Plotinus. Through the Neo-Platonic school it passed over into Christian theology. Throughout the Middle Ages it formed a motive in the speculations of the philosophers of the School. St. Thomas Aquinas sought to deal justly with its merits, without endangering the interests of orthodoxy. Meister Eckhart, who was by training a follower of St. Thomas, but who gradually grew more independent of the master as he taught, helped to introduce mystic conceptions into German thinking. The German mystics deeply influenced later Protestant theology. The favorite devotional books of all the churches, and some of the best known of the religious poets and hymns, have continued to extend the mystical influence amongst the laity even until to-day. The unorthodox forms of Mysticism are almost countless. Schopenhauer